Should customers have online access to their PHRs?

Should customers be allowed to access their Personal Health Records (PHRs) online? This insideARM.com article delves into the positives and the negatives of companies like Google and Microsoft fighting for such access. Arguments for online access are plentiful: Decreased costs for smaller practices, easier access to patient records from hospital to hospital, increased compliance control and less paperwork, just to name a few. Still, some argue that online medical record storage "without HIPAA protection opens the door for employers and insurers to deny applications for work or medical coverage based on health information that outside of the PHR system would have been kept private." It also opens the door for other invasions of privacy--just ask Britney Spears. Regardless, are online health records an inevitability?

For more:
- read the insideARM.com article